Monday, November 21, 2016

The story of Hurricane Matthew continues.....

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest ~ Matthew 11:28

Hello everyone, hope all is well and ready for the Thanksgiving holiday. I sure am. When I last posted it was a struggle for me to write the blog without expressing any of my personal emotions. As a writer I have focused on expressing my emotions through my characters, plots and stories.
I opening admit that I have struggled with blogging because I was uncomfortable showing my personal emotions. I did not want my readers to read my blog and automatically assume that this was who I am. Besides, in the world wide web, once it's out there.....it's there.
In my last post, I talked about the day before the storm. Today, I'm going to continue with my story.

Saturday morning, October 8, 2016 I cooked a big breakfast: grits, eggs, sausage and toast. A normal southern breakfast in my home. I started doing laundry and just piddled around the house. (Contrary to what the Webster Dictionary says, piddled/piddling is a southern term that means, staying busy. Example: Picking up after kids, straightening, cleaning and organizing rooms as you multitask with other house chores).
A little after 1 pm the electricity goes out. It comes back on. It goes out again. The third time it's out for good. By now, it's somewhere around 2:30 pm. The gale force winds had become stronger at this time. It was still fairly bright outside so I decided to go upstairs and work in my office while it was still daylight. I was on vacation and figured why not get a jump start on my list of chores to get done that week.
I started up the steps. Fourteen of them. My son had went up prior to me to get his guitar. A perfect time for him to play since the electricity was out. Halfway up the stairs I stopped and went back downstairs to retrieve something from my bedroom. What exactly, I no longer remember. Back up the stairs I went. Just as my feet touched the landing, my son came burling out of his bedroom shoving me back down the stairs. This is when I realized that my (at the time) sixteen year old, 5'8", bony, skinny teenage who weighed no more than 120 pounds soaking wet was very, very strong.
I gripped my hands onto the stair banister with all my might trying to force the words out of my mouth that was screaming in my head, "What's wrong with you?"
"The trees falling, the trees falling!"
My eyes grow wide with fear and disbelief. I remember screaming, "NO!" As soon as the words fell off my tongue all I could hear was, crash, boom, bang.
My teen held me as I screamed and yelled. My husband came burling up the stairs to find me standing in my office. A spare bedroom. Wind and rain whipped through the room. An intruder and unwelcomed visitor that is was. A tree limb bigger than me extending inside the window rested upon storage containers of winter clothing, family records, photos, Christmas decorations, a filing cabinet, a desk and several of my hand writing manuscripts that had been filed in a storage crate.
What was once a window was no more. Glass in a million pieces lay everywhere, including the storage containers that once were covered with lids. Shards of glass protruding from the broken window were being blown inside the room each time the gust winds blew.
"Get out! Get out!" My husband yells at me. Forcing me out of the room he slams the door shut. I will not ever forget the sound as that door closed. My heart fell to my feet. I felt like the door to my dreams had been closed forever.
"There's nothing we can do right now, not until the rain and wind stops." He held me for several long minutes as I weep in his arms. He could not have known the thoughts that I was having nor that I had a deadline with an editor. A deadline at the end of October that now would not get met.
Writing has been my life for the past ten years. Every thought, idea, dream, notion, I had written now had a tree limb leaving it's marking on it. I thought I was done for. It had taken me two years to find a good editor and now I was dealt with yet another obstacle and set back. I was in a position that would be most difficult to deliver my end of the agreement.
Downstairs I sat at my dinning room table, holding my head with my hands as the most agonizing, ferrous migraine took over. The gust of wind beating down on us as other trees in the back of yard began to tumble like dominos, I began to pray, "God you've got to help us." I remember looking at the time. It was barely 3 pm.
It would be five hours before my husband and son were able to hand cut the tree limb out the widow and board it up. Thank God we had the plywood to do so. I realize now that my husband had used scrap wood from were he had built a hunting tree house this past spring.
I can't remember what I cooked for dinner that night. I do remember I couldn't eat. I was sick with grief. I do remember thanking God that we had a gas stove; one that I had demanded when we built our home.
I will stop here until later....